Car bomb kills Iran nuclear scientist amid 'covert war' (Video)

TEHRAN, Iran — It seemed a clockwork killing: Motorcycle riders flashed by and attached a magnetic bomb onto a car carrying a nuclear scientist working at Iran's main uranium enrichment facility. By the time the blast tore apart the silver Peugeot, the bike was blocks away, weaving through Tehran traffic after what Iran calls the latest strike in an escalating covert war.

The attack — which instantly killed the scientist and fatally wounded his driver on Wednesday — was at least the fourth targeted hit against a member of Iran's nuclear brain trust in two years. Tehran quickly blamed Israeli-linked agents backed by the U.S. and Britain.

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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton denied any U.S. role in the slaying, and the Obama administration condemned the attack. However, provocative hints from Jerusalem reinforced the perception of an organized and clandestine campaign to set back Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The day before the attack, Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was quoted as telling a parliamentary panel that 2012 would be a "critical year" for Iran — in part because of "things that happen to it unnaturally."

The blast killed Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, the centerpiece of Iran's expanding program to make nuclear fuel. Roshan, 32, had planned to attend a memorial later Wednesday for another nuclear researcher who was killed in a similar pinpoint blast two years ago, Iranian media said.

It added a tone of defiance. "We will continue our (nuclear) path without any doubt ... Our path is irreversible," said the statement carried on state television.

The state news agency IRNA said Roshan had "organizational links" to Iran's nuclear agency, which suggests a direct role in key aspects of the program. Another news agency, the semiofficial Mehr, said Roshan had been interviewed by inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency — which Iran has accused of placing its scientists in peril by including their names in public reports.

Natanz, in central Iran, is the country's main enrichment site. Officials said this week they were expanding some operations to an underground site south of Tehran with more advanced equipment.

The U.S. and its allies are pressuring Iran to halt uranium enrichment, a key element of the nuclear program that the West suspects is aimed at producing atomic weapons. Uranium enriched to low levels can be used as nuclear fuel, but at higher levels it can be used as material for a nuclear warhead.

Iran denies it is trying to make nuclear weapons, saying its program is for peaceful purposes only and is geared toward generating electricity and producing medical radioisotopes to treat cancer patients.

The years of virtual stalemate between Iran and the West appear to be shifting into a new period of heightened pressures and tensions.

Russia strongly warned the West on Wednesday against any attack on Iran, saying it would upset global security.

Military action would be a "grave mistake, a flagrant error" with far-reaching consequences for regional and global stability, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the ITAR-Tass news agency. "It could shake the foundations of the international system."

Tehran has accused Israel's Mossad, the CIA and Britain's spy agency of engaging in an underground "terrorism" campaign against nuclear-related targets, including at least three other slayings since early 2010 and the release of a malicious computer virus known at Stuxnet in 2010 that disrupted controls of some centrifuges — a component in nuclear fuel production. All three countries have denied the Iranian accusations.

Or maybe the reason we are trying to kick off a Middle East war is so that AIPAC can continue to hold congress over a barrel for donations?

I can't remember all the good reasons we have for getting involved over there. Was it because Iran is trying to blow our good and faithful ally Israel (sorry, USS Liberty survivors, you don't count in this discussion) off the map? Maybe because we want to stop the pipeline Iran wants to run from Iran to the Indian industrial heartland so Halliburton's competition is eliminated?

Or is it because the almighty petrodollar is threatened by the Iranians selling in other currencies and we want to kill lots of American GIs so we can wave the flag and keep gasoline prices down?

Do we even know why we are over there?

Or is this just another gigantic charlie foxtrot like Vietnam and Iraq?

$3.00 gal gasoline to the winner of this mystery quiz. A folded flag and a free ride home to the loser.

Better to take out a person here and a person there. Then all out war where thousands if not millions may die. Iran means to make nukes and only a fool would believe otherwise. Their Arab neighbors don't want Iran to have nukes no more then the rest of the world does. Their government leadership is unstable to say the least. If the ones who did this are who I believe they are ( smile ) . Then I would like to say this to them " job well done " !